Dan H

Love the clean look of the equipment. Can't wait to see it with livestock.

We're baby sitting a friend's dogs while they are visiting family, and Ariel was very interested in the mithrax crabs.

Yeah, I would suspect if there were a lot of substantial scratches, it would be a lot more effort. The scratch in the picture above was the only real significant scratch that you could feel with your fingernail. The rest were all superficial and buffed out very easily. It would have been nice to polish it with some Novus, but since it was filled up all chemicals were off the menu obviously.

The 7000 did clog up pretty quick. The good news is since you're working on clear acrylic, you can actually see it get clogged up, plus you can feel it.

I believe this is also a similar process used to polish scratches in car paint. I'm half tempted to read up and give that a go in the future. Then again, probably not.

Perhaps my favorite coral, and a great price. If I didn't already have one, I'd be on this fast.

Thanks! Here's how: http://www.austinreefclub.com/topic/35732-acrylic-scratch-removal-while-tank-is-running/

I forgot to note that for re-finishing the entire tank, I only used the 3000, 5000, and 7000. It wasn't quite enough to remove some of the slight scratches, but it removed about 99% of them and all of the original polishing marks are gone. The remaining few scratches I'll probably have to go down to about 1200 or possibly 800 for 1 or 2 of them to really buff them out.

So a few days ago I was cleaning my tank with the magnet scraper, and when I rounded the corner of the tank, the scraper smashed a tiny snail and I didn't notice... So I gave a good long push and made a very substantial scratch that was about 8-10" long! Needless to say I was really sad to see such an eyesore on our tank. So I read up on the good ole internets on how to fix scratches while the tank is still running.

Here is the scratch:

Step 1 - Acquire waterproof sandpaper of grits 400, 800, 1200, 2000, 3000, 5000, 7000. I purchased 3 kits on Amazon that had various grits so I have plenty to choose from.

Step 2 - For the scratch, depending if it's really deep or not, use either the 400 or 800 grit. I used 800 on the scratch above because I was scared of the 400. Cut a small square that is about the size of your fingers.

Step 3 - Using almost no pressure, hold the sandpaper with your fingers as flat as possible and gently move back and fourth (or up and down) across the scratch. Go perpendicular to the scratch (90 degrees). You only need to do a few passes across the entire scratch.

Step 4 - Cry because now the acrylic will look like you really just messed up.

Step 5 - Calm down, and get the next higher grit, and cut another square. Go perpendicular to the direction of your previous grit sandpaper. Again, with minimal pressure, hold the sandpaper with your fingers flat, and move back and fourth (or up and down). You only need to make a few passes over the section.

Step 6 - Repeat Step 5 until you get to 7000 grit.

Step 7 - With the 7000 grit, I first went perpendicular to the previous grit. At this point as you sand you can feel the paper resist where it needs more sanding, and it will be very smooth where it's sanded enough. You will see a soft white cloud of acrylic coming off where it still needs sanding. You may have to get a new square of sandpaper if it clogs up.

Step 8 - Use a new square of 7000 grit, and go perpendicular to your previous pass with 7000 again. You should get the entire section/panel to be smooth as possible when passing over it. From the outside, you might see a very slight haze on the acrylic. When it's smooth, the sandpaper will pass over and you won't see any acrylic "dust" coming off, and it will pass by with almost no resistance.

Step 9 - Go over the panel with your magnet scraper, and any remaining haze should go away. If you still see any haze/lines, you may have to sand a little more with 7000, try going 90 degrees again if necessary.

Step 10 - Grab a beer and enjoy your restored acrylic.

Finished:

A lot of the internets was suggesting that 2000 was sufficient but I found that you could still see very substantial lines and it was hazey. I wasn't able to get it to be a mirror finish until I did 2 passes with the 7000. 1 pass just didn't cut it. After the second pass, It was such a good finish that I think it actually looks better than when I originally bought the tank. Perhaps the manufacturer didn't even go to 7000?

I know everyone is scared of acrylic because it scratches easily, but in less than 3 hours, I was able to polish the entire tank and have it restored to better than new. Granted my arms are pretty tired now.

And after fixing the scratch... I'll post another thread about how I fixed it.

Oh and that's the last one we're going to sell for now.

Glad to hear! Hope they do well for you.

Leave it unless it's from a big hermit crab. Those are solid enough I can remove them, dry them out and leave them on the top of someones computer monitor or TV.

I like that idea. Going to have to use that.

Any pictures of some of the corals?

Yes. Scratching my tank this week was an extreme D'OH for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO37Ql91qqM

If it gets stuck to a pump, I pull it out, but otherwise I'm too lazy.

Yeah, I think bot sides of that argument are valid... If you change it up, you get diversity. If you keep it the same, you theoretically make it easier for people to remember.

Certainly it seems like we should try changing it up and see what happens.

I can host in Feb, but I live really far south. Not very convenient.

Like San Marcos South?

I think the people in the South have been asking for a meeting in that part of town, so I say let's do it!

I would like to figure out what day and time works best for everyone. Feel free to suggest other times.

I still need a volunteer to host the February meeting. Anyone?

Also, we've been discussing the possibility of moving it to Sunday evenings instead of the middle of Saturday afternoon. It seems that perhaps people are generally tied up Saturday during the day doing family stuff and what not. Thoughts?

Thanks! The green with red/pink tips I suspect is going to be a really nice one. The frags are already encrusting and it's coloring up more and more each day. The titanium I suspect is going to be a bit slower growing as it's pretty thick and very sturdy. Fragging it was fairly difficult. It ate up dremel cutting blades pretty quick and it was too thick for bone cutters.

If you can wait, I bought 10' on Amazon. Pretty cheap compared to anything local. I know that's probably not helpful as you are trying to do stuff today.

I hope they find it, UPS has been a nightmare lately

No kidding! It's not just UPS, it's all of them! UPS, Fedex, and USPS. I've had multiple deliveries get delayed, or lost in the last week. Starting to get really annoying.

My gift to myself is a 36" BML 14K we're going to upgrade the refugium and turn it into another frag grow-out tank.

Pics of the frags we're keeping in the DT.

We have some pretty nice Zoas ready for y'all.

God of War on the right - $40

Gatorade on the left - $20

Wolverines - $40

Watermelons - $20, $15

Blue steel - $20

Pink with gold tips - $20

Mary Jane - $30

So the new batch of maricultured frags are ready to go! They've already started to encrust and are coloring up more every day. If you want prime picks, act fast. We're only going to sell about 3-5 of each. The rest are destined for the SAoSA frag swap.

$50 for the mini colonies, $40 for the big frags with multiple branches, $20 for the single branches.

DaM Titanium - a nice titanium grey with teal, forms large and thick branches.

DaM Green with red tips (cool name coming soon)

I have a flexible schedule the rest of the year so it should be easy to figure out a time to pick up.

So as you may or may not know, we've begun having frag auctions at the Monthly meetings. These auctions are meant to strengthen our community, give back to others, and allow people to get some really good deals on some great coral! Plus they're fun!

The last 2 meetings there have been about 50 frags, most of which have been selling for around 25-50% of retail. In quite a few cases, some of the frags even sold for $1!

Let's show off some of the great stuff you've won! I'll kick it off...

In November's meeting, I scored this awesome Fungia from Ty for a whooping $5.